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Guarnaccia's field of action |
Marshal Guarnaccia is the figure of a clumsy but intuitive carabiniere, with headquarters in Florence's Palazzo Pitti.
The stories involving him take place in this city and are narrated in novels that weave together the plots of the most classic crime novels with Florence, the real Florence, with the streets of Oltrarno, its rather old-fashioned cafés, its morning market in the piazza and its ordinary people.
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Getting to know Florence through Vasco Pratolini |
The streets and suburbs of Pratolini's Florence, where the stories of Metello, of the “poor lovers” and of all the other characters portrayed in his books get intertwined.
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There are no translations available. Il libro Savonarola. Moralità e politica a Firenze nel Quattrocento è un interessante testo di Lauro Martines sul controverso predicatore domenicano e la Firenze di fine Quattrocento.
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Marco Vichi, the shadow side of a city |
A dark, mysterious Florence is at the same time the background and the protagonist of his novels
It is called the “urban noir”, and is a branch of the “noir” genre in which the city setting is an integral part of the story, in that far from merely forming a background the city becomes a full-scale protagonist, showing its dark side, its least known, most hidden and cruellest face.
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Aldo Palazzeschi and the Florentine settings of his books |
In the context of the earlier 20th century in Italy, the work of Aldo Palazzeschi, (real name Aldo Giurlani (1885-1974), occupies an important place. This Florentine writer, in fact, was outstanding both as a poet...
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Dino Campana, travelling poet |
From Tuscany to Argentina and back, from travels to jail, poetry always represented a unique resource for the author of the Canti orfici (Orphic Songs)
Entro dei ponti tuoi multicolori / L'Arno presago quietamente arena / E in riflessi tranquilli frange appena / Archi severi tra sfiorir di fiori
Between your variously colored bridges / The foreknowing Arno quietly shifts the sand /And in her tranquil reflections barely shatters / Severe arches among fading flowers.
[from ‘A Selection of Modern Italian Poetry in Translation’, by Roberta L. Payne, McGill-Queen’s Press- MQUP, 2004, Translator’s Note]
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Salman Rushdie’s latest bestseller: The Enchantress of Florence |
A historic novel set in the conflict-ridden Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the enlightened empire of the Indian sovereign, Akbar
The Enchantress of Florence, the new novel by the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, condemned by a fatwa issued by the Iranian ayatollahs, arrived in bookshops in Great Britain and the United States on 3 April.
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The Florentine origins of Lady Chatterley |
D.H. Lawrence wrote the first version of his famous novel Lady Chatterley's lover in Scandicci, not far from Florence.
"Catch the tram to Scandicci and get off at the last stop at Ponte Vingone. Continue on foot, walk past the “pagoda” house and then turn left towards San Polo at the crossroads with two cypress trees. The road then goes downhill and you can already see Villa Mirenda on the hill opposite."
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"Amici miei" [“My Friends”] of our Times |
Cosimo Calamini is an established television and cinema author who has been behind the wings of successful programmes for many years.
Now he has written his first novel, published by Garzanti entitled “Poco più di niente” [“A Bit More than Nothing”].
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Centuries of Splendour and Mystery |
Quattrocento, a Tale of Sublime Art Stained with Blood.
«At first I had been thoroughly disappointed with the city. Florence had appeared to me as being abandoned to its destiny with bursting litter bins and immersed in a cacophony of hooters and sirens which shattered the reflection of its Renaissance past. However, I had gradually got used to that ‘exhausted buffalo’ breathing».
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